a genie offers you a deal
 

he offers to give you the ability to see your opponents hole cards, forever. in exchange, your hand will ALWAYS be the nut low. meaning your preflop hand will always be 32o, when the flop comes K62, it turns into 43o, etc. there's no guarentee that your opponents will never figure this out.

do you take this deal? and what type of games will you play? you can't back out at any time (meaning the 'fun' of poker may be lost forever).

if you would take this, how much would you be willing to pay for it?

(if you play hi/lo games or lowball, obviously your hand will simply be the worst possible. no loophole here.)

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

What a crap genie. If you can't ever have a showdown value hand, you'll never win. Its that simple. If you could have 32o and always have it be that way, meaning you get a pair, trips, 2 pair, boat, straight once in a while, you'd do a lot better. But frankly, you are asking whether pure bluffs against opponents whose whole cards you know can make up for never winning when you are called, you are crazy.

Change this to something like pocket 2s on every hand, and it would be interesting.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

I actually think this has HUGE potential to be profitable. You can simply let your opponents bluff their way into oblivion. Any time they make a c-bet, just raise. Triple barrel bluffs would work great, you can value bet as if you had top pair hands against draws, fold when they hit and force them off if they miss. it would SUCK, cause all the fun in poker would be gone. If you could turn it off it would be great, but as is I would never use it because it takes away the entire point of poker. It becomes a game of chicken because you can never call an all in, and anytime you get a bluff called your boned.
interesting but it would make poker boringggggggg.

Edit: On the other hand if you always had SOME hand not the nut low, but always the 2nd best hand at showdown (or 3rd best in a 3 way pot or so on) it would be more interesting from a profit standpoint, because some people won't view your hand as a bluff everytime.

i.e if you had 99 on a JT8r board and he has JA and calls. He sees you have a legimate hand EVEN if it's fixed that you're gonna lose.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
I actually think this has HUGE potential to be profitable. You can simply let your opponents bluff their way into oblivion. Any time they make a c-bet, just raise. Triple barrel bluffs would work great, you can value bet as if you had top pair hands against draws, fold when they hit and force them off if they miss. it would SUCK, cause all the fun in poker would be gone. If you could turn it off it would be great, but as is I would never use it because it takes away the entire point of poker. It becomes a game of chicken because you can never call an all in, and anytime you get a bluff called your boned.
interesting but it would make poker boringggggggg.

[/ QUOTE ]

My problem with this is that these situations are not often enough to have to make up for constantly limping or raising with crap PF, depending on your position and opponents hole cards, and then having to constantly fold later on. Sure, you can easily pick off every bluff, raise when someone has a marginal hand, win a lot by the river, but you will NEVER win a showdown. Not everyone is bluffing all the time, and you'll be forced to fold more than you think. Plus, in this game, the only real good strategy is to raise. Calling is obviously stupid. You'll get called by lots of hands playing 'correctly,' they'll hit hands they won't fold, and that's it folks. Since you know their cards, you then have to c/f.

I simply don't agree with you.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

However lets say this. You see a guy with 55 raise in the CO. You also see that BB is holding 53o. His odds of flopping a set are almost nil. The blinds are holding trash and are almost certainly folding. So you are on the button and you reraise just enough that him calling for set odds is correct. hell you could just min raise it. that works too. He misses almost every flop, and usually doesn't even have a good draw.
he
A) c-bets. You raise a lot and he folds.
B) checks to you. You bet a lot and he folds.

Now lets say you see suited connectors limp. again an easy target. The thing is, you know EXACTLY what EVERYONE has. You know the odds of them hitting.

Clearly, players don't hit monsters all the time. But usually they won't call big bets with almost nothing (bottom pair or worse). When they do hit, what's the problem? Just fold. Afterall, AK only hits the flop like 35% of the time or something. (i'm bad with numbers)It's not like you have to push them off every hand. Indeed doing so will probably make player suspicous. I think you should probably have a nit like play style, since it will make your opponents give you more credit.

Even if he has a great hand preflop its horrid otherwise.
If you see two players with good hands anywhere, then you can just fold preflop. You make moves when you will probably be heads up on the flop because you see all the hole cards. And then if they miss (which most hands do) you just make them fold.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

bena, post some hands that illustarte how we might lose a decent sized pot, without the opponnet getting completely lucky. because if you can't beat the game knowing your opponents hole cards, you are making huge mistakes. i posted this as an open question, but the fact that YES YOU CAN WIN i thought was pretty obvious.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

The only time I can see you losing a big pot is when you shove over their c-bet with AK, and they get the gumption to call you because they think you're bluffing. which you are. You should win way more then enough small pots to make this be way in your favor.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

except that im NEVER shoving a c-bet when they have AK unless i know they're good enough to fold it. and also, why am i in the hand in the first place when i saw someone had AK preflop??

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

well because you know that if you reraise their AK preflop they call and they miss you probably get them to fold. Don't make the mistake of assuming AK is really good or something, it almost never wins unimproved without going to the felt preflop. Usually when you don't improve by the first 3 cards, it's correct to fold.

I would most definitely 3 bet against AK if I saw the other 7 players held trash. You extract far more value that way.

I think the interesting question here is not whether you would accept this, but rather how to maximize profit from it.

EDIT: lets not forget most players think they can get implied odds off of you. You may even want to make a "mistake" of letting them win a bet or two if they have a legit hand, so it doesn't seem like you're a freaking god.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

You all make very good points. And I should point out that sometimes in this forum, I forget that we are talking about ALL poker games and revert to my area of experise... which is limit. In NL, I can see how bet sizing would give you a profit even without ever having to see a showdown (which of course, you could never, ever win).

But for LIMIT hold'em, I stand by my original assumption. Even knowing all your opponents cards, which are dead, who has a chance to draw, etc... in this scenario you rely entirely on folding everyone out before a showdown. Even if no one ever picks up on how crappy your starting cards seem to always be, I do not think, even in the weakest/tighest of games, that you could realize a profit.

[ QUOTE ]
bena, post some hands that illustarte how we might lose a decent sized pot, without the opponnet getting completely lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

My pleasure. First of all, I'd like to talk about a 'decent sized pot.' This type of pot means that people often play correctly against your bets, even if they don't know it. This is the most dangerous type of pot for your hand, because even when you have a huge fold equity on the turn or river, they are gonna either call to hit something or even occasionally call your river bet with bottom pair or A-high. Since you can never beat these hands, the juicier the pot, the smaller your fold equity. You may argue that the bigger the pot, the less correct your bet or raise needs to be. That is true, except that now, there is no such thing as a semi-bluff, since you'll never improve. You have no card strength, only fold equity. You are playing their cards, not yours. That's often the way to go, but also often a huge downfall.

Hand 1:

You get 32o on the button:

2 limpers, holding A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]j[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. The blinds are holding 22 and 72o. You raise (obviously, knowing there are no 2s left and that the limpers have speculative hands for the most part.). SB calls with 22, all call. 4 player to flop for 8SB.

Flop: Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]4[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

checked to first limper who bets, second limper calls, you... um... fold. Or, if you raise to fold blinds and build fold equity, the blinds fold, the limpers call. (sure, they suck)

Turn: Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 1st limper checks, second one bets, and you fold.

Okay, you would argue that you shouldnt' have gotten that far with someone holds a pair of Aces. Well, then why not fold preflop? Because you know their cards? Silly.

Hand 2:

You are MP1 and dealt 32o in a weak tight game. Folds to you and you raise. Button re-raises with TT and all fold. (or maybe you'll just fold here. But then, what hands ARE you playing against?)

Flop: K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]3[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

At this point, you miraculously hold 42o (according to your premise). You bet trying to represent the K or J. Villain raises (correct on his part if he's never seen you show down a hand and begins to suspect you are a bluffing, action player). You 3 bet to keep on the disguise? You fold because you can't forsee a way to fold him before SD?

So you 3-bet to keep up your representation of the K. Villain calls.

Turn: 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] So you bet again. Villain hesitates and calls.

River: A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] Great, a perfect scare card here, but maybe villain knows this too. The only way to win is to bet. So you do. Villain pauses a long time and then...

Hand 3:

3 limpers, holding J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]9[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 55, 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] limp to you in HJ. You raise with, surprise, 32o, noticing that CO, button, and SB have crap. BB calls with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].

Flop (10SB). 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Darn, you now hold 43o. But you have position, initiative and a whole bunch of people with hard to play hands. Two people have top pair, and one holds a 55.

check, check, bet (guy with top pair, BD flush draw and BD straight draw and who suspects you are raising light). You raise to try to get it heads up and buy this pot representing a better hand (which you can easily do if this succeeds, given your PF raise). Everyone folds to bettor who calls.

Turn (6BB) K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

checked to you. You can't bet, because you know he'll call with a flush draw and a pair. So you need to wait for a brick river.

River: 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (again, you miraculously now hold 52o.)

To your surprise. Villain bets into you. But you checked the turn. Perhaps you should have bet there for river fold equity. He figures you probably don't have the K, and he can represent a failed c/r on the turn, or something else that you now can't call. Your only option is to raise to try to fold him out. This will work a rather small portion of the time.

These hands, IMO, are actually quite normal in their play. If you want to explain to me how you could have played them differently to be 'profitable', go ahead. Perhaps you could have folded preflop, but then, what range of hands are you looking to play against? These seem reasonable. Sure, I came up with situations where someone hit something, and you may argue that it doesn't often happen. Okay, then you steal lots of small pots. This in no way makes up for your disadvantage.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

One more thing: If even once, you bluff a river against someone's unimproved A6o, and they decide to call you suspecting you are full of [censored], that's gonna make anyone paying attention more inclined to call you down, since at least online, your cards are automatically shown. And in live play, if you just open muck after someone's c/c, roughly the same effect will occur. Fold equity goes way down from a meta-game perspective.

If you are caught just ONCE with 32o on a high-card board, and somebody picks you off with A-high, you are really screwed. Even idiots are gonna go "wow, what a crazy bluffer. He raised PF with nothing, bet the flop, turn and river with nothing. I'm gonna have to show him down with even a pair."

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

first off, i said we could choose whatever game we wanted (full ring, heads up, limit, NL, SNGs, MTTs, whatever) and i thought it was implicitly obvious that no one would ever, ever want to play LIMIT in this situation.

secondly, why do you keep betting when people have pairs as if by giving them the pot, you're bleeding away money???

hand 1: raise preflop, fine, whatever. check fold flop. i lost, what 3xbb?
hand 2: great, lets assume the opponent is a complete moron who calls down large, consequtive bets with underpairs. this must be the first hand you played against him because why would you try to move him off a pair ever again? one time mistake, which even for the amount of fish in the game these days, must be rare.
hand 3: why am i raising into people with top pair when i know i ONLY have fold equity?? check fold the flop!

as i said earlier bena. if you're losing to people whose cards you can see, you're making huge mistakes. the above post validates that.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
as i said earlier bena. if you're losing to people whose cards you can see, you're making huge mistakes. the above post validates that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, then explain how you are making a profit when you can only buy small pots when no-one has a pair. Do you really think this is coming up often enough for you to be able to make up for all the blinds you have to pay, all the bluffs you have to give up, and all the 'suckouts' you are gonna see? They're not really ever suckouts, because everyone always holds a better hand than you.

Again, no one has made a legitimate counter-argument to my claim that never being able to win at showdown will destroy you. And like I said before, if your hand stayed fixed, it would be different, but since 32o mutates into the nut-low no matter what, all you HAVE is fold equity.

[ QUOTE ]
hand 3: why am i raising into people with top pair when i know i ONLY have fold equity?? check fold the flop!

[/ QUOTE ]

Um... with no showdown value, no pot equity, no implied odds and no chance of improving, expalin to me EXACTLY what value you EVER have other than fold equity??? The answer is, none. Fold equity is the only value you have in your hypothetical situation. If you want to argue with that, then explain how you can win at showdown?

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
and i thought it was implicitly obvious that no one would ever, ever want to play LIMIT in this situation

[/ QUOTE ]

Implicitly obvious? No. Try being explicitly obvious next time. You just said poker, and that you could choose your game. I'm a poker player, and I'm responding to your situation in a limit game. If you didn't want that to happen, then say so.

Obviously, I'd rather play NL, stud, or lowball with this setup, but I do find this interesting to try and apply to any game, and see if it works. I think that Draw would be my last choice for a game to choose.

Edit: Actually, it just occured to me that I'd rather not play any stud type games with this format either. Whether its low or high, having the nut low at all times means that you could never ever REPRESENT a good hand, since all your up cards would be crap too. Sure, you could represent rolled up somethings in high when you knew your opponent only held a medium pair, but you can't have that every time, and eventually they are gonna correctly 'suckout' against what you are representing, or more likely, figure out that you are full of crap. In lowball, its even harder, since all your exposed cards are gonna be high. Maybe NL is the only game, IMO, that this format would be profitable.

Very interesting question, and I'm glad you posted it.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

Interesting question.

BenA is right that this deal would be awful for Limit and 7 stud.

For NL tournaments, this deal would probably be very profitable if you used your knowledge of holecards mainly for steals and re-steals. Once the tourny got heads-up, you would have to press for a deal.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
as i said earlier bena. if you're losing to people whose cards you can see, you're making huge mistakes. the above post validates that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, then explain how you are making a profit when you can only buy small pots when no-one has a pair. Do you really think this is coming up often enough for you to be able to make up for all the blinds you have to pay, all the bluffs you have to give up, and all the 'suckouts' you are gonna see? They're not really ever suckouts, because everyone always holds a better hand than you.

Again, no one has made a legitimate counter-argument to my claim that never being able to win at showdown will destroy you. And like I said before, if your hand stayed fixed, it would be different, but since 32o mutates into the nut-low no matter what, all you HAVE is fold equity.

[ QUOTE ]
hand 3: why am i raising into people with top pair when i know i ONLY have fold equity?? check fold the flop!

[/ QUOTE ]

Um... with no showdown value, no pot equity, no implied odds and no chance of improving, expalin to me EXACTLY what value you EVER have other than fold equity??? The answer is, none. Fold equity is the only value you have in your hypothetical situation. If you want to argue with that, then explain how you can win at showdown?

[/ QUOTE ] yes you ALWAYS only have fold equity. so why are we hoping that 2 people BOTH with top pair will fold?? why not wait until you're against ONE opponent who has bottom pair or worse? of course this deal is unprofitable if you play like you have to win every single pot.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

I think you can clean up with this deal, even assuming you can't play any split pot or low-only games.

I'd play NL HU or real short. Steal blinds when my opponents have total crap. Try to get in cheap when my opponent has mediocre hands, then checkraise him all-in when he bluffs with a complete miss. And fold anytime he has a decent hand. (Never try to play him off Ace high or any pair even on the river)

I think poker'd still be interesting, cause not all your plays will work. For example you may raise pre-flop when he has 72 but he may go all-in and you'd have to fold.
Or you may checkraise him all-in when he has JT and the board is A48 and he for some reason decides to call or misclicks.

There would still be variance and skill to the game. It'd just be of a different nature.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

HU you could never win. You could settle for MTT finishing 2nd, but you'd never win. AND...since you'd have to live with the fact of being 2nd best and knowing you could never win poker would obviouly become a boring (all be it very profitable) hobby. so you'd have to ask yourself and your ego if the money is worth it because you'd never have a bracelel and people would eventually know that you're full of sheeet.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

oooh one thing i didn't think of before is that you can never play in a televised tournament.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

Does your hand change even after it's been flipped? For example, one situation has us facing a preflop raiser who has AK and missed the flop of T 6 7 rainbow, he continuation bets and we raise all in. He calls thinking we're bluffing so we're forced to flip over 23. Now does the genie's wish make it impopssible for us to ever spike a 2 or 3 to actually win this pot?

Also, as someone stated what if you're on TV?

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
HU you could never win. You could settle for MTT finishing 2nd, but you'd never win. AND...since you'd have to live with the fact of being 2nd best and knowing you could never win poker would obviouly become a boring (all be it very profitable) hobby. so you'd have to ask yourself and your ego if the money is worth it because you'd never have a bracelel and people would eventually know that you're full of sheeet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well most people never win a bracelet so I can't imagine that it would kill your ego to know you'll never win one. I just don't understand why people would play tourneys at all with this power.

Seems to me that the most profit lies in the mid/high stakes deep stack NL games. Watching live at the bike I believe it was a 10/20 game with unrestricted buy-ins there were players with 20K+ stacks. In a game like that the blinds cease to be a real issue.

Playing limit this would be worthless, and I'd avoid short stack NL and tourneys as well.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

Wow, way to screw with my mind early in the morning. I would probably take it and play cash games only.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

this has ACTUALLY happened to me. If you get offered this DEAL DONT DO IT. unless you have a massive bankroll. i cant get any one to fold at the lower levels so cant build a bankroll, people call you with there bottom pair and it is always good.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

I'd switch to RAZZ and/or Omaha Hi/Low and pwn big time.
I wouldn't even need the hole card part of the deal.

Edit: Doh, just read the disclaimer. How could I miss that 1st time round?
Nah, the deal is off. FU genie. You suck.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
One more thing: If even once, you bluff a river against someone's unimproved A6o, and they decide to call you suspecting you are full of [censored], that's gonna make anyone paying attention more inclined to call you down, since at least online, your cards are automatically shown. And in live play, if you just open muck after someone's c/c, roughly the same effect will occur. Fold equity goes way down from a meta-game perspective.

If you are caught just ONCE with 32o on a high-card board, and somebody picks you off with A-high, you are really screwed. Even idiots are gonna go "wow, what a crazy bluffer. He raised PF with nothing, bet the flop, turn and river with nothing. I'm gonna have to show him down with even a pair."

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would you ever be bluffing the river against ace-high? BenA, I agree with alphatmw, you are thinking of scenario's where it would not be profitable and simply sticking with that. If the question started, "You have to play full-ring .50/$1 the rest of your life and..." then that would different. Open your mind - any game, any stakes, any number of opponents and you can still game select. This would be HUGELY profitable.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
this has ACTUALLY happened to me. If you get offered this DEAL DONT DO IT.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think some PokerStars affiliates were offering this promotion to new players. I tend to always opt for the cash instead.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

[ QUOTE ]
Open your mind - any game, any stakes, any number of opponents and you can still game select.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never said that I disagreed with other games. But I see no problem with arguing my point about a specific game.

People keep saying "all you are giving me is examples of situations where it wouldn't be profitable." If you want to say that, show me some common situations that occur that make this profitable in limit. If bluffing A-high doesn't have value, then are we just waiting around for people with bottom pair, busted draws, and UI JT to win against?

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

this situation will never be profitable in limit. once again, this seems so blatantly obvious that i can't see anyone who's felt the need to discuss it except you.

Re: a genie offers you a deal
 

All this does is reduce the game theoretical aspect of poker down to bare minimum.

You can play perfect poker, as defined by the fundamental theorem of poker. This is good, it makes you money, guaranteed.

However, if your opponent picks up on what is happening, he can easily play perfect poker as defined by the fundamental theorem of poker as well. When 2 perfect strategies collide, it is a matter of luck.

Because you have the worst kind of luck, you are guaranteed to lose if your opponent knows what is going on.

Edit: another aspect of this is cheating. With simple hand signals you could signal a partner when they are best, since you know their cards and everyone elses at the table [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]